Luna sat in her TIE, for the moment forgotten in the ensuing chaos, staring at the place Rana had been. She felt numb.
And then, she felt angry.
An enemy TIE flew in front of her, chasing Vix, and her fingers acted on instinct, squeazing the trigger. She scored a glancing hit and the TIE veered off, into the Ka'iulani's sights, who happily seized the opportunity to seek her own vengeance, and the TIE disintegrated into a thousand pieces.
Luna gunned her twin ion engines and darted into the melee, but was too late to prevent Fenn taking a hit on their main engine and they floated through space, powerless, a perfect target.
'Everyone on Fenn,' Luna ordered through gritted teeth, looping about them defensively. She dared to take a quick peek at her sensor readout, and her stomach clenched. Her fellow Nexus were in complete dissarray. Face wasn't engaged at all, hovering on the outskits, and One Flight was paying for his lack of command presence. Three Flight, understandably, was in a panic, lacking all cohesion, and Two Flight now half their usual strength. Meanwhile, the enemy squadron - Krayt, did the commander say? - had seized their moment of shock to reorganise into a cohesive unit, and even now were pushing that advantage, forming pairs and chasing down anyone who found themselves alone.
'Vix,' said Luna over the comm, fighting to keep her voice calm, even though her body shook with fear and panic, 'fly out of the battleand form up, come to my location and tow Fenn out of here. Ka'iulani, stay with me to protect Fenn. One Flight, screen the retreat.' Luna didn't bother to wait for acknowledgements, just trusted that they would do as they were told, and saw two TIEs were coming up on her aft. She waited until they had committed to their run against her instead of Fenn, the bolted off into the asteroid field, picking a large enough target. As she rounded the asteroid, she cut her engines and turned hard towards the rock, firing her engines again to arrest her movement, and waited. A moment later, the two TIEs soard past her. She let off a few bolts but missed. She didn't bother to try again but raced away, back to Fenn. Ka'iulani was alone, fending off three TIEs, but her own B-wing was proving a difficult target, the woman using its unique configuration to her benefit, rotating the body around her cockpit to avoid most shots, her shields taking what she couldn't. Luna aimed her X-defender at the centre of the enemy flight and dived headlong into them, breaking them up. Her fighter shuddered as something scraped against her wing, and she flinched, expecting to lose control, but besides some loose feeling in her yoke, she detected no issue.
'More incoming,' said Tarrik from the Nest. 'Fighters bearing point oh-three. Detecting another contact coming out of hyperspace.'
'We need to leave,' Luna all but yelled into the comm, her stomach lurched as she remembered that Garan was aboard the Nest, but she put thoughts of him out of her mind. 'Vix, where are you?'
'Coming up on your six,' replied the Devaronian, and a moment later what was left of Three Flight swooped into and settled around Fenn's fighter. 'Cables away and secure. Cover me.'
Immediately an enemy TIE scored a direct hit on Vix's X-TIE, his shields popping in a flash of electric blue and green fire. Twitch angled his own v-wing at the incoming fighters and shot a volley, yelling in anger when he only managed to get a glancing hit on one, but his shots proved enough of a deterrent and the fighters abandoned their run
As Vix and Fenn made their slow crawl, One Flight had managed to drive off their own attackers and started providing cover fire, clearing the way to the Nest, which had settled on the upper edge of the asteroid field, itself under long range fire from the star destroyer. Luna reformed with Ka'iulani on her right, Twitch on her left, and together they charged headlong in a deadly game of chicken with an incoming flight of enemy TIEs, exchanging a blistering fire, and as they closed in on one another, the enemy broke, unable to deal any damage thanks to the superior shields of Ka'iulani and Twitch's modified fighters. But as they broke, another flight made a run on Vix and Fenn, and Luna directed them back to the vulnerable Nexus, but as they drove those off, another came in from behind and Luna was knocked from her seat as she took a direct hit on her shield generator in her port strut, obliterating her shield protection and severing the port solar panel completely. The lights in her cockpit panels went dark and she floated through space, powerless.
'Luna's been hit!' cried Ka'iulani, her voice unnaturally loud in Luna's headset. 'Face, we need to get her out of here.'
Luna unsteadily regained her seat and looked at her flight computer, which flickered to life after she delivered a sturdy blow to it. She saw on her display that Ro'vena and Kai had broken formation and were heading straight for her.
'Belay that,' she said, her voice hollow. She could see on her readout how the other TIEs were already racing ahead to take advantage of their break. 'Get Fenn out of here,' she ordered.
'Oh shut your face, Luna, snarled Ka'iulani, 'we're coming back for you.'
Twitch added his own thoughts to the discussion, 'Queenie's right - I need to get at least one kill in this fight, just to make me feel better,' he said in Rodian.
Luna smiled. She loved how, even now, even when it was the stupidest idea in the galaxy, they were there for her. 'No,' she said, smiling sadly. 'Stay with Vix and Fenn.' even now more TIEs were on them and she watched, anxiously, as they fended off another wave. More TIEs, reinforcements, flew by her, not even bothering to finish her off. 'Go,' she said, fighting the lump in her throat. 'Live - for me.' she heard Vix let out a howl of anger before she took her helmet off and crawled to sit by the forward window. It was some comfort to her that they did as she asked, saving themselves as they slowly, somehow, made it to the Nest, its cannons blazing out as they latched onto the rack.
She keyed on her comm and struggled to keep the sadness out of her voice before she spoke. It wouldn't do to make them feel worse about this.
'May the Force be with you,' she said, trying to convey her love for them in the words, 'always.'
In a flicker of pseudomotion, the Nest disappeared into hyperspace, and she was left alone to face her fate.
